How did the Underground Railroad cause tensions between North and South?

By provoking fear and anger in the South, and prompting the enactment of harsh legislation that eroded the rights of white Americans, the Underground Railroad was a direct contributing cause of the Civil War. It also gave many African Americans their first experience in politics and organizational management.



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Although only a small minority of Northerners participated in the Underground Railroad, its existence did much to arouse Northern sympathy for the lot of the slave in the antebellum period, at the same time convincing many Southerners that the North as a whole would never peaceably allow the institution of slavery to ...

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Southerners were outraged that escaping slaves received assistance from so many sources and that they lived and worked in the North and Canada. As a part of the Compromise of 1850, a new Fugitive Slave Act was passed that made it both possible and profitable to hire slave catchers to find and arrest runaways.

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Even so, the Underground Railroad was at the heart of the abolitionist movement. The Railroad heightened divisions between the North and South, which set the stage for the Civil War. (1860-1865) American conflict between the Union (north) and Confederacy (south).

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During the era of slavery, the Underground Railroad was a network of routes, places, and people that helped enslaved people in the American South escape to the North.

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Needless to say, slave owners did not appreciate the Underground Railroad. Although they disliked Abolitionist talk and literature, the railroad was far worse. To them, these were simple cases of stolen property. Slave catchers often traveled to the North to try to recapture freed slaves.

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The primary importance of the underground railroad was that it gave ample evidence of African American capabilities and gave expression to African American philosophy.

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Slavery was an integral part of southern life. Many southern politicians, journalists, and economists began to argue that the northern free labor system harmed society more than slavery did. Southerners claimed that enslaved people were healthier and happier than northern wage workers.

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7 Facts About the Underground Railroad
  • The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. ...
  • People used train-themed codewords on the Underground Railroad. ...
  • The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it harder for enslaved people to escape. ...
  • Harriet Tubman helped many people escape on the Underground Railroad.


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The railroad opened the way for the settlement of the West, provided new economic opportunities, stimulated the development of town and communities, and generally tied the country together.

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The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway recounts the life story of Harriet Tubman – freedom seeker, Underground Railroad conductor, abolitionist, suffragist, human rights activist, and one of Maryland's most famous daughters.

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